Cognitive Reflection Of Anger And Anxiety

The emotion episodes recorded were anger and anxiety, in which both are considered to be negative emotions. The main function of negative emotions would be to signal danger and this would eventually lead to negative evaluation of events. However, anger and anxiety have emotion-specific effects, resulting in different cognitive processes and action tendencies.

Anger is elicited when there is unfulfilled goal or expectations, provocations and injustice. Anger has a functional mechanism of aggression, fighting injustice and removing obstacles. There are different theories that could explain the generation of emotion such as arousal- and motivation-based appraisal theories, network theories and other cognitive appraisal theories. However, in

Thus, anger activates increased anxiety as it made me anxious about the incomplete assignments. Anxiety would also reciprocally activate the emotion of anger as it activates the memory of the recess week. Hence, both anger and anxiety reinforces each other, resulting in a vicious cycle of anger and anxiety. These further supports the idea that this is episode would be considered as an emotion rather than mood as the reciprocal activation leads to longer period of the emotions, which was supposed to short-lived.

However, it is possible that moderate level of anxiety may have positive effects such as increased concentration and logical thinking. It further motivates individuals to take actions and cope in order to reduce the feeling of distress and anxiety. Thus, moderate level of anxiety may be good in doing tasks efficiently.

In conclusion, although there are many theories that could explain the generation of emotion, SPAARS model provides a more holistic explanation of generation, transition of emotions as well as emotion coupling. Both episodes involve the generation of negative emotions, which could be generated through the appraisal route like anger in both episodes and guilt in the first episode as well as through the associative route, involving more unconscious and automatic processing, for the emotion of anxiety in the second